Sanctum
by Kato Molotov
Summary: [7x01 Post-Ep Speculation. Spoilers inherent. 1000 word drabble.] So she explores, reveling in the exhaled release of doubt, the relief he finds in her acceptance, the expression of here and still and always.


Kate believes him. Mostly.

He says he doesn't remember. And she thinks that's probably the truth. He doesn't remember who took him. He doesn't remember why. He doesn't remember where he was, or how long. That, she believes.

But something lingers.

It's in the way he recoils when a hand curls around his shoulder. It's how he flinches at an unexpected movement in the periphery of his vision, or the suddenness of a loud noise. It's how he hasn't yet slept with the lights completely off.

It's the showers that have grown longer. It's the way September fades into October, the chill of autumn settling into the loft, and yet the air conditioner remains on at night, though he pulls up an extra blanket and keeps resolutely to his side of the bed. It's the moments he wakes up shouting. It's the moments he doesn't wake up, just curls into himself and murmurs her name endlessly, trapped in some half-remembered hell until she wakes him up and curls into his arms, as much for her own comfort as for his.

It's the panic attack he had getting into the car to come home from the hospital: so severe that they had to take the subway instead. It's that despite his joking, it takes him a week to be able to kiss her. Longer until it feels right again. It's that he's been home nearly two weeks, and this is the first time he's allowed her touch to his uncovered skin.

Castle steps out of the shower, wrapping a warm towel around his waist. His thick hair sticks to the side of his face, water running in spidery trails over his skin. Fascinating, the way certain patches of skin pucker in gooseflesh. She's waiting for him. Perched on the vanity, wearing not a stitch, she watches with appreciation and he gives her a sweet smile with just a hint of his usual slyness, stepping towards her and allowing her greeting touch to his breastbone with reluctance. Perhaps he's still not ready.

"Cas-"

"Shhhh..." he hushes, covering her uncertain, retreating hand with his own, pressing it back to his chest, implicit permission given. So she explores, reveling in the exhaled release of doubt, the relief he finds in her acceptance, the expression of here and still and always.

There are things Lanie didn't mention. Maybe because she doesn't know every mark, every line, every dip and protrusion of him. Not enough to remember what's been and spot what's new. Kate sees it now, though.

The gunshot wound is healed, but the mark glows red on his side still. And beyond that, much worse than that, are the others. The three small circular burns to his left forearm, now faded white, and one to his bicep are tragic little mysteries, too small for cigarettes, but what? The wear marks to his wrists and ankles, the ones that took weeks to make and weeks to heal before they found him, those haunt her dreams. The antipodal marks on his hands – top and bottom, two circles in just the same place – are easily overlooked in their healed state, but the thought of how they might have gotten there, those keep her up at night.

There's small comfort in the way that, aside from the gunshot, he's remarkably devoid of all these signs of captivity anywhere he normally keeps covered, and his aversion to touch seems general rather than specific.

"It's alright," Castle murmurs gently, and she gives a watery chuckle, breaking out of her mind. "You can touch."

So she does.

One hand, then two, and lips follow soon. She welcomes him home. Tears she's suppressed for months finally fall. His too. How she's missed him, missed this, missed the connections they can only find in each other. Kate swipes her lips over the mystery burns, rubs circles with her thumbs around the strange stigmata to his palms. She plays her fingertips along the gash to his side, the beautiful shuddering of his skin when she does, the blessed location of the wound. An inch over and it would have been his liver.

She's never understood his preoccupation with the bullet wound between her breasts, never understood the compulsion he has to kiss and touch it, to press his palm to it, to nearly worship it. But now, she drops to a crouch in front of him, ghosting her lips over the beautiful mark that says he's here and alive. He makes no noise. No indication that this bothers him at all.

Of course it doesn't. He understands, and now, so does she.

"Thank you," she releases her gratitude at the altar of his warm and living skin. "Thank you." She loves this scar, she realizes with a jolt, a sob of relief and resurrection. She loves it as evidence for answered prayers pleaded in his absence. The ones she offered to nothing she really believes in on the nights she retreated to her apartment and slowly re-colonized her window, when she made another shrine to another missing piece.

Castle can't take the focus to his wounds any more, and she's happy to leave them behind for now. He guides her up his body, hooking his arms under hers to wrap her fully in his embrace. It feels nothing but wonderful, perfect right now, back to normal and something a little more now too. Something stronger forged from time and pressure and fire. He still tastes of it: fire and coffee and something just him, a flavor she sucks eagerly off his tongue.

The towel falls to the ground and finally – _finally –_ three months' distance is inched out with the last barrier between their skin.

"Take me to bed, Kate," Castle requests.

So she does. Drawn from a well she's called on so many times in the last few months, she gathers all the courage she has left and expels it into him with her exalted kiss.

And finally, they return all the way home.


End file.
